Congratulations to Juliana Stratton on winning the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate

Congratulations to Juliana Stratton on winning the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Illinois yesterday! Stratton, who is currently the state’s lieutenant governor, is now the heavy favorite to win the Senate race in November in the deep-blue state where no Republican has won statewide since 2014. By joining Senators Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Stratton’s victory would make it the first time in the 236-year history of the U.S. Senate that three Black women have served in the chamber at the same time. Only five Black women have ever held a Senate seat in American history. Stratton would be the sixth.

Stratton defeated two veteran members of Congress — Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly — in a race marked by a massive infusion of money from the cryptocurrency industry, which has made the 2026 midterms a top spending priority. Fairshake, the crypto industry’s main super PAC, spent nearly $10 million on attack ads targeting Stratton, while allied groups simultaneously boosted Kelly in what was widely seen as a deliberate effort to split the Black vote and clear a path for Krishnamoorthi.

The crypto industry’s PAC Fairshake is planning on spending nearly $200 million to influence the midterm elections. The Fairshake PAC is funded by companies like Coinbase and Ripple that are fighting to keep cryptocurrency exempt from the same SEC oversight that governs stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments.

In practice, that means the industry wants to continue selling financial products to ordinary consumers without adhering to the basic disclosure, transparency, and anti-fraud rules that every other financial industry is required to follow — the kind of safeguards that might have prevented disasters like the collapse of FTX, which wiped out billions in customer funds.

Stratton had drawn the crypto lobby’s ire after she called out Krishnamoorthi for accepting support from “MAGA-backed crypto bros,” and after Governor JB Pritzker — her chief  political ally — signed new cryptocurrency regulations into state law. In a campaign video responding to Fairshake’s attack ads, Stratton said: “$7 million. That’s how much a MAGA-backed crypto PAC just dumped into attack ads against me because they know that I can’t be bought.”

 Stratton, 60, was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side. She worked as a lawyer before winning an Illinois state House seat in 2016 and has served as the state’s lieutenant governor — and first Black woman to hold that office — for the past eight years. She ran as an unapologetically progressive candidate, campaigning on Medicare for All, a $25 minimum wage, abolishing ICE, and restoring the abortion protections of Roe v. Wade.

In her victory speech Tuesday night, Stratton told supporters: “Together, we’ve confronted one of the most frightening moments of our lifetimes. But despite the fear, we never lost sight of what was most important: courage. Courage inspired me to run. Courage powered this campaign. And courage will bring this fight straight to Donald Trump’s door.” She added: “We will fight for Medicare for All. We will fight to abolish ICE. We’ll fight for a real living wage, not just the bare minimum. We will fight to defend our rights and claw our democracy back from the brink.”